Our coach tour was a shared taxi today, a student from London and a free-lance photographer from Sydney, they were both impossibly beautiful. The photographer essentially travels around south east asia, uploading photographs with various agencies and getting paid for it - nice work! Paul's mind was whirring with possible angles that he could get in on. 8th Century Borobudur is a colossus, built with two million stone blocks, with six square levels topped by three...

We are now settled in Yogyakarta, about 7-8 degrees south of the equator. I was getting confused with my directions on the train as the sun was in the north for the whole journey when of course I was expecting it to be in the south. Angela always stresses the importance of having a south facing garden, well of course down here (below the equator) she would recommend a north facing one. Yesterday we decided to book our train tickets to the next place and walk arou...

26th July - Tuesday - Alarm and up at 06:00 - blue sky and 70-ish - great sleep - and off to the buffet breakfast (fried rice, bread, fruits, vegetable dishes, juice, coffee etc..) then quick spruce up and check-out. We Walked the 300m to the station, bags dragged behind. Luckily we were directed to the station for tickets by helpful locals and queued at the correct booth - now 07:05 - train for Yogyakarta leaves 08:00 (ish). We already had a room booked and pai...

25.7.2011 We left Medan by taxi through the usual melee of Medan fumes and traffic congestion and headed to Medan 'International Airport' - rather like Luton 15 years ago, but also looking like a 1980s shopping precinct in Kirby. Fast 'kiosk check-in' and bag drop and we were tempted to the 'Crown Lounge' at 60k (£4.50 each). What a gem - we had A/C, snacks, drinks (all free) and some peace and quiet! Plane came in 18:05 and miraculously was emptied and we were ...

Safely in Medan we had 90-ish degrees today and little to report. Fast breakfast, relax, then Becak to a local Mall. We had to find a backup hard drive (just in case!) a power adapter and some drinks. We walked around the Mall as the only 2 white Europeans we saw. Adults and children looked at us as though we had 2 heads! We sorted the drive out quickly, then at 'Carrefour' we picked up the adapter too. We grabbed bananas for tomorrow and Paul went looking for or...